Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
M aya grinned as a walking plant with tall leafy fronds and two arms holding a glazed terracotta plant pot, came into the kitchen. Her grandad’s smiley face bobbed out from behind it as he carefully placed plant on the table, before her grandmother walked in and tutted, briskly shooing him out (with his plant) to take them back to his huge glasshouse. ‘I thought they’d look nice in the conservatory?’ her grandad winked at Maya as her grandmother forcibly tried to shove him back out into the garden with the tea tray she was carrying. As they stepped into the conservatory Maya was accosted by an ancient lemon tree that her grandmother used for her gin and tonics, and she almost tripped over several potted succulents that had spiky leaves and Maya already knew were painful to land on.
‘It’s already full, as you well know!’ scolded her grandmother. ‘It’s becoming like a jungle in here and it’s so hot I was thinking of putting on my bikini!’ Maya grinned, as that was probably her grandad’s goal, knowing him, but regardless the sun was beating down and the catmint and evergreen magnolias in the garden were beginning to flower and fill the air with their rich lemon-vanilla scent. Never ones to stick to convention, the huge Victorian house they lived in by the River Thames, with its rambling garden, had rooms full of curiosities. You never knew what to expect every time you arrived. Her grandmother was a law unto herself and did as she pleased and her grandad was just as incorrigible when it came to plants. It was a floral assault course just to get to the front door at times and she was sure this was pre-meditated to test the merit of any visitors. Woe betide anyone who damaged one of her grandad’s plants!
Watching her gran take tea with several famous faces and some royals had filled Maya with awe as a child. She’d worked as a fashion designer to the stars, in her heyday. Maya, Arthur and Romy had often stretched out on their stomachs and propped their faces in their hands while they peered through the upstairs bannisters and listened to their gran greet a famous face at their door and welcome them into her dressing room for a fitting. The children hadn’t been allowed to say hello very often, but they had always been curious enough to see if the client was anyone they recognised.
Moving in here at the tender age of thirteen had been an adventure, and it felt more like home than the small house she’d grown up in, in central London, with the endless stream of nannies. When her parents had been assigned abroad, everything had changed for Maya and her siblings. Her parents had always worked long hours, and it had been a relief to finally have the ‘stability’ of living with their grandparents. Arthur was one year younger than her and Romy three years younger. Being ten, twelve and thirteen might have seemed a delicate time to leave your children with your parents, but for Maya, Arthur and Romy, it had been a dream. They got to play in the vast garden at the back of the house and make forts under the branches of the rambling willow tree by the water. In contrast, their parents had always been uptight because they had demanding jobs and three small children. Both were surgeons, and although they loved their children, their work calling seemed to be stronger.
‘He knows full well we can’t fit more of his plants in the house,’ grumbled her grandmother good-naturedly, placing the teapot on the little coffee table in the centre of the room, and moving a couple of plump cacti to make space. The steaming teapot was snuggled into a very fashionable tea cosy that her grandmother had made. She poured them both a cup of tea, and then got up to retrieve some homemade biscuits from the larder. They were various sizes and covered in different chocolate toppings, as her grandmother didn’t do conformity, making them any size she felt like.
‘Have you been making mischief this week?’ she asked.
Her grandmother lifted her chin slightly and ignored her for a moment, then grinned and grabbed her hand.
‘Well… I did bake a cake for my women’s group, but it went down rather well. Just as well it was huge because they kept going back for more. Most unlike them, must have been those dried green leaves your grandad gave me to sprinkle into the mixture. He said they were medicinal, and they smelled funny.’ Maya rolled her eyes and stifled a laugh. Her granddad was a world-renowned expert in exotic plants and he also had a passion for healing herbs.
Maya decided that the topic was best left alone. She turned her face up towards the sunbeams that were filtering through the glass windows and felt them warm her skin.
‘How have you both been?’ she asked, biting into the nutty, chocolaty biscuit .
Her grandmother’s eyes ran over her and she tilted her head to one side, as Maya often did and regarded her granddaughter. ‘How are you, more to the point?’
‘I’m fine, Gran,’ Maya wouldn’t meet her eyes because she knew what was coming next.
‘Have you found the man of your dreams yet?’
‘You know I’ve been dating someone,’ Maya scolded lightly.
‘Well why haven’t we met him yet?’ her grandmother asked in a scandalised tone, eyeing her over the rim of her teacup, like a falcon about to pounce on a helpless mouse.
‘He’s busy. We both are,’ Maya paused and remembered the plan Noah had devised for them to integrate into each other’s lives. ‘I thought that we weren’t suited, but just lately he’s home more and we’ve reconnected.’ She recalled how a few of Noah’s friends had looked her up and down because she looked like a drowned rat. But she had just saved someone’s life, so she hoped they accepted her at some point.
Her gran was gazing at her thoughtfully, which always meant trouble. She hoped she hadn’t voiced her last thoughts out loud. ‘You know my brand has grown and I’m trying my best to keep up with it. It’s all been a bit of a shock.’
‘It wasn’t to me,’ her grandmother said haughtily. ‘Your designs are simply beautiful, Maya.’
‘You might be slightly biased, gran.’ Maya smiled.
‘I am not!’ she refuted. ‘Are you dating Robbie? He’s rather handsome. I saw you both on social media and I can understand why he’d be rather busy most days, but is he making enough time for you?’ She barraged the questions and then raised one eyebrow and nibbled on the edge of a biscuit. Her gran was addicted to social media and loved to have a gossip on various topics online.
‘We aren’t dating!’ Maya puffed out her cheeks because her gran clearly wasn’t listening. ‘He asked me to go to dinner with him.’ Maya put down her teacup and leaned back into her wicker chair, which was surprisingly comfortable considering its age and slightly wonky leg. ‘I told you he fell into the river and it’s his way of thanking for me jumping in after him,’ she said.
‘That was wildly romantic,’ sighed her grandmother, ‘but idiotic and I’ve already told you off for being so stupid!’ she scolded dramatically. ‘Your grandfather nearly had a coronary after you called him in from his glasshouse and told him. I’ve never seen him turn such a funny colour. You could have hurt yourself.’ Maya took her grandmother’s hand and squeezed it. For all of her nutty behaviour and bravado, she worried about her grandchildren and her daughter and son-in-law for working abroad in hard conditions.
‘I’m a strong swimmer, Gran,’ Maya soothed, taking her hand. Her gran’s eyes glittered with unshed tears, which made Maya’s stomach tighten with worry. It wasn’t like her gran to get over emotional.
Maya hadn’t mentioned Noah yet, and wondered how to drop into conversation that he was the guy she was ‘dating’. She’d only seen him once and although she had accepted the invitation to his garden party, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to mingle with the same people from his last one. Plus, if Noah announced her as his girlfriend, would Tabitha set her sights on her? That was something she’d considered before, and the thought didn’t sit well with Maya. It was a constant niggle. She didn’t like mean girls and had dealt with more than her fair share of them at school once the kids had found out that her parents had effectively dumped them and gone abroad.
‘I’ve jumped off of Bertha and into the river a thousand times over the years and broken nothing.’
‘You swung off the trees in the garden into the river enough times too!’ her grandmother stated, tutting again. ‘The amount of times your grandad and I told you to be careful when you were younger!’
‘Arthur, Romy and I spent half of our lives swimming in the river at the end of your garden, so I knew what to do to stay safe. You and Grandad taught us well.’
‘You were all a bunch of water babies,’ her grandmother smiled finally at the memory and Maya tried to relax a little. ‘You and Arthur always had river weed in your hair.’
‘We loved living by the river with you both. Coming here from our little square house in London to place with big rooms and an enormous garden by the river, with so many trees to climb and places to explore, was heaven.’
‘You were all hoodlums,’ Ettie joked, love shining from her eyes. Maya grinned because they were all pretty well-behaved children and the section of their garden that they jumped into the river from was quite safe and in a little inlet from the main riverbed. Her grandmother knew this very well, but was over-dramatising as usual.
‘I was very careful. I saw where he fell in and Bertha was protecting me from oncoming boats. It was fine, Gran.’
‘Plus, you and Joe got to meet Noah Benedict?’ her gran asked, clearly already knowing the answer.
‘He’d already bought one of my artworks,’ said Maya, deftly guiding her grandmother to a safer topic and setting the scene for their fictional meeting. ‘It was hanging in his guesthouse.’
‘His guesthouse! When did you go in there?’ Maya cursed under her breath and sighed. Her grandmother should have worked for MI5. Nothing got past her.
‘He let me quickly shower and change because I was soaked. I was only in there for a few minutes.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back. Her grandmother leaned back to see what she was doing and raised that dastardly eyebrow in question again. ‘Okay… I was in there for a while.’
‘What a coincidence,’ her grandmother said slowly with intrigue.
‘Not really,’ Maya winced. ‘He’s the guy I’ve been dating…’ Her grandmother’s eyebrows shot into her hairline, but she stayed quiet for once and waited to hear more. ‘We met when I was walking by the river one morning and he bumped into me, knocking my coffee all over me, but after a few dates it fizzled out because he’s away a lot and that’s not what I’m looking for.’ Maya carried on quickly before she changed her mind. ‘After I jumped in the river by his house, we reconnected and his next film is in London, so he’ll be home more.’
‘I see,’ said her grandmother, ‘how fortuitous!’ Now she knew her gran was over compensating for her underwhelming earlier response. Maya grit her teeth because she wasn’t sure if she heard sarcasm in her grandmother’s voice. ‘Is he the right man if he’s that busy?’
What? Maya had gone to all of this effort to make up a boyfriend and now even the fictional one didn’t make the grade. ‘He’s really making an effort now he’s home. He came round to see where I paint.’
‘Good for you,’ Ettie said, winking and grinning as she got up to get them fresh tea. ‘Finally some progress with your love life.’